David Condon Finds

Teachers seem to have an endless number of little occasions to mark during the school year. There are end-of-year gifts, Christmas treats, class prizes, reading achievements, good behaviour awards, sports days, competitions, birthdays, graduation and all sorts of smaller accomplishments in between. None of these necessarily calls for an expensive present. Quite often, it is simply the fact that a teacher has noticed an achievement and made a little effort to mark it that matters. Over the years I have had quite a few teachers and schools buy organza bags, ribbon and bows from me, often in combinations I would never have thought of myself. That got me thinking about some of the simple ways these supplies can be used for school gifts and prizes throughout the year. Image assisted by AI. End-of-Year Gifts for Pupils End-of-year gifts are probably the most obvious example. Teachers may be buying for twenty, twenty-five or thirty pupils, so even a small difference in cost quickly adds up. T...

Flowers do most of the work themselves. A good bouquet, arrangement or floral display does not need to be buried under decorations. In many cases, a small amount of ribbon or a simple finishing touch is enough to make the whole thing look much more complete. That applies whether you are a professional florist preparing arrangements every day or somebody arranging flowers yourself for a wedding, party, family occasion or simply because you enjoy doing it. Over the years, I have supplied ribbon and other craft materials to a number of florists around Ireland, and one thing I have noticed is just how differently the same basic supplies can be used. A roll of satin ribbon might finish a bridal bouquet one day, decorate a flower box the next and be used for a completely different project after that. So rather than looking at ribbon purely as something for tying a bow, here are some of the ways it can be useful around flowers and floral arrangements. Image assisted by AI. Why Is a Woodturner...

When social media first started becoming important for businesses, I was completely sold on the idea. For a small business, it looked almost revolutionary. You could set up a Facebook page, show people what you made, talk directly to customers, build a following and reach people far beyond your local area without needing a huge advertising budget. For someone running a small independent business, that was incredibly appealing. You no longer had to rely entirely on newspaper advertising, expensive print campaigns or hoping somebody happened to walk through the door. You could take a photograph, write a few words and potentially put your work in front of hundreds or thousands of people and not just in your own country. I was genuinely excited by it. Years later, my opinion of social media is very different. I still use it because, like many small businesses, I feel I have to. But if social media disappeared tomorrow, I honestly don't think I would miss it. In fact, part of me wishes ...

I decided to write this after being contacted by two different ladies in a fairly short space of time who were both in much the same situation. I had only launched my Buy & Sell page a few weeks beforehand so this was new to me. They had been left with workshops full of tools and machinery and were trying to work out what to do with them. I was able to help to a point, but I didn't particularly like feeling unprepared when replying to them. I know tools. I worked with them during my carpentry days and I use woodworking and woodturning machinery every day in my current workshop. What I hadn't really thought about was how different the situation looks from the other side. A woodworker can walk into a workshop and immediately recognise a bandsaw, lathe, planer, chuck, sharpening system or set of turning tools. The daughter or son trying to clear their father's workshop may have absolutely no idea what any of it is. The machine name doesn't mean anything to you if you h...

Free shipping sounds fantastic. As a customer, I like it too. If I am comparing two websites and one wants €8 or €10 for delivery while the other offers free shipping, I know which one immediately looks more attractive. I have chosen the free-shipping option plenty of times myself. Occasionally I have even thought afterwards that I should probably have supported the smaller business instead of giving my hard earned money to a large faceless entity. The post purchase guilt trip is never easy. The problem is that shipping is never actually free. Somebody is paying for it. For a large retailer, absorbing that cost can be relatively easy. For a very small business, particularly one making or selling low-margin products, free shipping can quickly turn a perfectly reasonable sale into a transaction that barely makes any money at all. I know because I tried it. I Kept Increasing My Free Shipping Threshold When I first introduced free shipping on my own website, I think my threshold was somewh...